Right Arm Blues
by SaturnOolaa
Summary: In which Chad is kind of bummed, and there is a flashback. [ChadIchigo, spoilers for Volume 23.]


Disc: Not mine.  
AN: Hah. Well, I said I would write Chad/Ichigo someday, I just never thought it would be this quick and half-assed. I needed to get it out before I got contradicted by canon! ...Uh, or something along those lines. Despite all its flaws, this is a pretty accurate rendition of the way these guys are in my head (your milage may vary, of course), so I'm happy. In summary, I love Chad, and you should too.

RIGHT ARM BLUES

After the fighting, Chad makes his way home in the darkness. The pavement feels harder than usual under his feet. It isn't raining, but maybe it should be - the air feels too dry. Out of the corner of his eye he sees a ghost crying bitterly below a streetlight. By the time he turns towards her she is gone.

When he gets home, he unlocks his door and stumbles inside as quietly as possible; he knows all his neighbors, by face if not name, and he doesn't want to disturb their sleep. By the clock on the wall it's nearly one in the morning. He walks through the apartment half in a daze, turning off the lights as he goes.

He picks up a stuffed animal and falls into bed with a thump that rattles the walls. He knows he won't be able to sleep. He doesn't even try. He just lies in bed staring at the ceiling, trying not to think. His body is exhausted and in pain (Inoue had other things to worry about and he didn't think she should bother) but after Soul Society it seems to have lost track of time.

Things have changed since Soul Society - no, since even before that. Now there is space where there used to be nothing.

What good is his body if it can't protect anyone?

An hour or so passes before he hears something, and then hears it again. He sits up just as another rock hits the window and bounces off. The rocks are being thrown with the exact amount of force necessary to hit the window without breaking it. In any case, there's only one person who ever comes around and throws rocks at his window.

Chad looks down and sees Ichigo looking back up at him.

xxx

The first time Ichigo came over to his apartment was a Tuesday, and they had just been in a fight. They won, of course, but Ichigo got punched in the face pretty bad. He was about to go home and get fixed up, but then Chad coughed and said "My place is closer." Ichigo, probably curious, followed him home.

"Nice," said Ichigo appreciatively, taking a long look around. "Hey, is that a Sega Saturn?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, wow. I think my sister used to have one of those, but she was always playing games about puppies."

"...I have Sonic."

"Cool." Ichigo stretched his arms and flopped down on the couch. "So you're here alone?"

Chad took an ice pack from the fridge and pressed it to Ichigo's eye, where a bruise was starting to form. "Mm."

"That's cool." Ichigo reached up to the ice pack to hold it in place, but his hand brushed Chad's and he kept it there, fingers hovering just above Chad's. His tone of voice stayed carefully casual. "Can I move in? My dad's crazy and it's driving me crazy, too. Can you cook?"

"Not really."

"Shit. There goes that idea." Ichigo sighed, then grinned. "Whatever. I'm starving, got anything in the fridge?"

It turned out that Chad had a few containers of caramel pudding, so they ate it and then just sat in companionable silence for a couple of hours listening to Bob Marley on Chad's second hand CD player. During the course of the afternoon their arms slowly crept up over the couch and around each other's shoulders, so that they were linked together like puzzle pieces.

Ichigo left around five to get home in time for dinner. "Can I," he said, shuffling his feet awkwardly at the door, "uh, come over again sometime?"

"Of course," said Chad.

After that, Ichigo came over a lot. Mostly they played video games; Chad bought a second controller for the Sega Saturn, and Ichigo got into the habit of renting games from a nearby corner store. Sometimes they watched TV (cop dramas or sumo, mostly), or movies (anything older than 1985).

Sometimes they put on music and made out on the couch. That was good; the feeling of Ichigo's mouth laughing between kisses when a particularly inappropriate song started to play, arms tight around each other. It was good like being together during a fight. Chad felt secure because he knew they were protecting each other.

But maybe none of that can happen anymore.

xxx

Chad lets Ichigo in, of course, and he's nearly the worst Chad's ever seen him: clearly he hasn't slept either, but it's more than that, it's an exhaustion that comes from the heart. He shuffles his feet at the entraceway like he's never been here before.

"Uh, hey," he says.

"Hey," responds Chad, wishing he could say something better.

"Sorry for waking you up."

"You didn't."

"Ah."

They stand there in silence for a while longer. "Listen, I, uh," says Ichigo finally, awkwardly "Can I...?" Then he closes his eyes and half-colapses into Chad, putting his arms around him as though to stop himself from falling to the floor.

Chad puts his arms around Ichigo in return, and holds him as though doing so could possibly keep him safe.

END 


End file.
